Roller Blade

this movie is a triumph of modern cinema.

it should be shelved between fellini's "satyricon" and truffaut's "400 blows".

with such enduring characters as "Mother Speed" and "Helpless Victim," you can't help but fall in love with their plights, empathize with their struggle, and finally, come to a stunning conclusion with tears of great justice shining in your eyes.

and not only does it come with brilliant, multilayered characterization & pathos, but also contains astonishing and subtle hints of sociopolitical criticism: for example, the upside-down, spinning shopping cart? i can think of no better symbol to better criticize the gross materialism that humanity seems to have embraced!

everyone should see this movie -- no, film.

may you forever skate the paths of righteousness.

I saw this movie eons ago, probably shortly after it came out. And the only reason I'm here looking it up on IMDB is that I had to prove to myself that this movie really existed and wasn't a late-night hallucination from my drug-addled post-college daze. To be honest, finding out that it really DOES exist is MORE disturbing than the alternative. This was the most insanely bad movie I have ever seen, by far. I recall one of the post-apocalyptic characters wearing a re-purposed colander as a helmet. You know a film is low-budget when the costume designer was raiding the kitchen cabinet.

This movie would actually be worth seeing, or even owning, for one purpose: if your friends are ever talking about the worst movies they've ever seen, you can hear them out with a smug smile on your face and then say "You think you know bad movies? Watch this..." You'll blow 'em out of the water.

There are certain bad movies out there that everybody knows. People talk of "Plan Nine From Outer Space" or "Robot Monster" or more recent movies like "The Room" and "Birdemic: Shock and Terror". But this one is seemingly unknown by the majority of people and that's a shame because it's awful in such a good way.

The story, if you can call it that, takes place at some point in the future. There are no cars and the only way to get around is on roller skates. Not roller blades mind you, roller skates. The "blade" part deals with knives because people use them.

There's this doctor character with a mutant hand puppet that wants a magic crystal because something something rule the world. You know, typical bad guy stuff. But in his way are the Bod Sisters, a group of rollerskating nuns armed with knives. There's a sheriff of sorts who speaks in Elizabethan English or maybe it's supposed to be biblical, I'm not sure but it's a lot of "Yay verily" and stuff like that.

And then three of the Bod Sisters get naked in a pool and perform some ceremony in front of a glowing happy face. Why? I don't know. It's never really explained and they're never seen from again. I guess they wanted to up the sexy in this to maybe get more people to watch it?

Oh and everybody's voice is dubbed. It's like they got three or four people in the recording booth and just had them record everybody's lines.

It's a shame that this never got a DVD release because I know that I'd want a copy if for nothing else to put on my bad movie shelf. This really needs to be seen to be believed.

My review was written in July 1986 after watching the movie on New World video cassette.

The fad of low-budget science fiction films inspired by the Aussie hit "The Road Warrior" reaches its nadir with New World's "Roller Blade", an amateurish junker released directly to the home video market.

Set in the "City of Lost Angels" during an unspecified post-W. W. III period of barbarism, pic has a female religious order controlled by Mother Speed (Katina Garner) battling with Dr. Saticoy (Robby Talor dressed like a "Road Warrior" bad guy) and his evil henchmen. The novelty of everyone performing on roller skates (except Mother Speed, who's in a wheelchair and young punkers called spikers who use skateboards) soon wear off nd the film becomes interminable.

Saticoy sends a foxy blonde girl (Shaun Michelle) to infiltrate Mother Speed's order and steal her power crystal, which has the ability to heal and even bring the dead back to life (it only works one time per customer, however, on stiffs). She ultimaely rebels and joins the good guys, who, led by Sister Sharon (Suzanne Solari) and a local cop (Marshall Goodman) destroy Saticoy.

Filmmaker Donald G. Jackson apparently shot this mess silent and poorly dubbed new voices for the characters, which only make it seem inferior to the numerous post-synched Italian films in the genre. Special effects (some of which appear to be executed by video techniques) are poor and there is no evidence of a futuristic society in the west coast locations and familiar looking freaks. Inane dialog fails to be funny and Saticoy's hand puppet/doll "baby" sidekick *(at one point it does a Froggy the Gremlin impression from Andy Devine's 1950s tv show) is too silly for a pro feature.

Obviously aware of the video marketplace, Jackson features a great deal of female nudity, including several porn actresses in minor roles.

End credits promote a sequel, subtitled "Holy Thunder".

Roller Blade is not and has not pretense of being a great movie. Anyone applying a rigorous scientific analysis to the technologies depicted will either pull out her hair or laugh herself silly.

But it delivers exactly what it promises = action & babes in skimpy outfits. And as one of those babes is the delicious Michelle Bauer, this remains one of my guilty pleasures.

There were just enough literary references in the movie to lead me to believe the producers toyed with the idea of making it a serious flick, but then we were treated to more babes.

All Michelle Bauer fans should watch every film she ever appears in, even this one.